Glad to hear they’re helping! Let me know if you ever have any questions

I agree - these are so helpful and well done!

I appreciate it! Let me know if you ever have any questions

Good questions. 1. Vs. Middle field closed, you can still high-low the safety, it just takes a little longer to get him into conflict. So you can cut the split of the dig to get him in front of that middle field player more quickly if you want. Otherwise, the high-low stress is still there for the underneath defenders. One of those linebackers is going to have to attach to the drag or transfer it off and that will open up one of the windows behind to the dig. You can see that at 1:28 vs. the Bears, though the Falcons don't use anyone in the flats because the RB is occupied in pass pro. If it's Cover 2, which is considered middle field open, the same is true, you just have to be careful to keep the post skinny and away from that other safety (who theoretically could be occupied by a deep route to his side like a fade). There's a couple clips in the beginning that attack a two-high shell as an example. Not exactly Cover 2, but the idea is similar. 2. The diagram is from Shanahan's playbook. Since the Shallow is hot, he's giving that as the first read in case of a blitz or extra pressure. If that's open right away, you can get an easy throw and if your eyes are there, it can pull defenders up as a pseudo look-off for your second read on the dig. Teams can teach the progression differently, but generally deep routes are used as alerts / run offs. They typically don't get thrown except when the offense gets a matchup or coverage that they want. Otherwise their purpose is to occupy deep defenders and prevent them from crashing down on routes underneath. Hope that answered everything. I appreciate the support as always

@@WeeklySpiral Thanks a lot, it does help indeed!

Working on converting all the articles at weeklyspiral.com into videos as we speak. In the meantime, here's the Wide-9 article: weeklyspiral.com/2021/12/27/9-technique/